Businesses and other large organizations typically have a mailroom or delivery department which serves as a central point for the receipt of items such as mail pieces, parcels, and packages. The received items must then be delivered to the intended recipients within the organization. For large organizations, which may have hundreds or even thousands of employees, the internal delivery is a complex issue. In a large organization, not only the received item must be delivered as soon as possible, but the internal delivery or other disposition status of the items must also be recorded and updated so that the whereabouts of the received items can be known instantly, if desired. The tracking of the receipt and the internal disposition of the items is useful for the management to evaluate the performance of the delivery department. Moreover, the tracking of the delivery status can eliminate the unnecessary frustration and wrongful accusation toward the person responsible for the internal delivery when an item is misplaced or lost after delivery.
Systems have been developed to track the receipt and internal delivery of items within large organization. One such known system is marketed by the assignee of the subject invention under the trade name of ARRIVAL.
ARRIVAL is a software system which typically runs on a microcomputer to maintain a database of items received by a large organization. Typically, the record of a received item includes information such as a tracking number provided by the carrier who delivered the item to the organization, the date and time received, the name of the carrier, the name of the employee who actually received the item from the carrier, the name of the intended recipient, date and time of the internally delivery of the received item and name of the person who signs for the internally delivered item. Typically, the tracking number is provided by the carrier in a barcode form so that it can be read with an optical scanner known as a barcode reader.
Preferably, the above-mentioned tracking data collection system includes a data processing unit which is programmed to maintain a database of records relating to received items, each of the records identifying an internal delivery address and delivery status for one of the received items, and to generate a manifest which identifies selected received items for internal delivery. The system also includes a portable data terminal which has the capability to communicate with the data processing system and which is programmed to input internal delivery information for the selected received items, and to communicate the internal delivery information to the data processing system.
The portable data terminal has been disclosed in the patent application as identified in the cross-reference.
While the portable data terminal and the data processing system have proven to be successful for the intended purposes, there are areas in which improvements can still be made.
It has been recognized that each organization has its own preferred format for recording data relating to the receipt and internal delivery of an item. Accordingly, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a portable data terminal for tracking the receipt and the internal delivery status of items such as packages, wherein the data collection format for recording the tracking information can be created and/or modified by the user of the portable data terminal, in accordance with the user's needs.